Free Doctor Hudson’s Secret Journal by Lloyd C. Douglas Page A

soul.”
    She shook her head a little, smiled, rose, said “Good night,” and closed the door softly behind her. That’s the way it always is when I express some appreciation: Nancy thinks of an errand she has to do without delay.
    I wish I could obey the dictates of my own heart. Maybe Nancy shares that wish. We have never discussed it. She is absolutely indispensable to this hospital. She is its brain and soul. She has an important ministry here. Everybody leans on her; the staff, the nurses, the patients. I have no right to disrupt this relationship. Sometimes I have almost permitted my desires to get the better of me in this matter. I think I know how she feels. Perhaps I could break her down and override her convictions about her clearly appointed duty. If I told Nancy that I needed her more than Brightwood, she might agree; but she would never be happy about it, and neither would I.
    Once, a couple of years ago, we were still down in the old building in Cadillac Square, she came into my office with an open telegram in her hand and the tears running down her cheeks. Her father was dead. I impulsively drew her into my arms and she pressed her forehead hard against my white coat; then laid her cheek against my heart and clung to me tightly for a long moment. I was much moved. Presently she released herself, glanced up, dabbed at the corners of my eyes with her handkerchief, an act very like the one she had performed almost every day in the operating-room when she was a surgical nurse and would wipe the perspiration from my face, and said, softly, “Thanks, for the tears.” But there has never been a repetition of such mutual affection, and it has not always been easy to be restrained.
    ♦
    On several occasions I have observed that it has been comparatively easy to finance an investment in somebody else, when it would have been difficult to do as much for myself. I do not pretend to understand this; much less explain it. I simply state it as a fact, and you may appraise it for whatever it seems to be worth.
    On the tenth day of September, 1905, I was so hard up that it was doubtful whether I could pay the month’s current bills in full; yet, on that day, I decided to make arrangements for Tim Watson to enter the university at my expense.
    I sold the Cadillac for seven hundred dollars, a good price. The car had cost a great deal more, but that was all it was worth now, and I was lucky to get that much. It would be a long haul to sponsor Watson through college and the medical school. And I wouldn’t have a car to fetch to market every September. But I was ready to take the risk, and see what came of it.
    I asked for the next day off, and went to Ann Arbor. Everybody was gracious and co-operative. I engaged a room for Tim, and found a place where he could work for his board; had a conference with the Registrar; even had the audacity to call on President Angell, and came away feeling that I amounted to something. It was a great day for me. When I walked down to the station to take the train home, I wore a broad smile. People whom I passed gave me a second look, and sometimes they grinned. I remembered what Randolph had said about his own sensations. He had declared that the grass was greener, the sky bluer. It was a fact! One became acutely conscious of the birds. All colors were more vivid. The people on the street seemed more friendly, more alive. I had done something to myself; there was no doubt of that.
    I had not told anyone where I was going. During the day, several calls had come in at the house inquiring for me, and were informed that I was at the hospital, and called back to say I was not there. Tim was getting anxious. I found him pacing the pavement in front of the apartment house when I arrived at seven.
    “Hope I haven’t worried you,” I said. “I have been to Ann Arbor, arranging for you to enter college, a week from Wednesday. It’s all settled, your pre-medic course.”
    Tim said nothing. He seemed